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MEMOIR 



SENATOR BUCKINGHAM, 




nfh//2,uM 




SKETCH 



WILLIAM ALFRED BUCKINGHAM, 



INCREASE N. TARBOX. 



Reprintbd from "The Congrkgational Quarterly" for April, 1876. 



BOSTON : 

ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 

34 School Street. 

1876. 



WILLIAM ALFRED BUCKINGHAM. 



The face of Gov. Buckingham has become very familiar to 
the people of New England, and indeed of the whole land. 
By his personal presence in so many places, and on so many 
occasions of public interest, great multitudes of this living 
generation have seen and known him. By the aid of art, 
his picture has been taken up and circulated through the 
whole country. It is a face which, once seen, is not likely 
to be forgotten, or confounded with the faces of others. It 
stands out, by itself, clear to the eye and clear to the memory. 
There was a manly beauty, not only in his features, but in his 
whole person and in his bearing, that made him a man to be 
remembered. An inherited and cultivated politeness, a gentle- 
manly dignity, a winning and courtly action, were joined in 
him with great force and executive ability. Whether presid- 
ing at some public meeting, or mingling in the social gathering, 
or meeting his neighbors in the common thoroughfares of life, 
there was a grace, a decorum in every word and in every 
movement. 

One chief reason why he was so widely known personally, 
and will be iso widely remembered, is, that he ranged through 
so large a field of activities. It is rare that any one man 
moves in so many different spheres, and comes in contact with 
his fellow-men at so many varied and diversified points. In 
the first place, he was a man of very large business, well 
known in the central circles of trade and commercial activity. 
When he entered prominently into public political life, he came 
as one providentially raised up to meet the terrible exigencies 
of our late war of the Rebellion. He had been two years 



Governor of Connecticut (1858-60) before the outbreak, and 
by party usage would then have retired. But the troub- 
lous clouds which began to loom up on the horizon made 
Connecticut afraid, in this crisis, to change her leader ; and so 
for six years more, through all that dark and changing conflict, 
he sat at the helm and guided the State. That divine wisdom 
and foresight which gave Abraham Lincoln to the nation in 
those trying years, gave William A. Buckingham to the State 
of Connecticut. He had been in office long enough before 
the Rebellion to know the place and its duties, and, with the 
opening of the war, he became a pillar of strength, not only to 
his own little State, but to the nation itself 

Passing from the round of State offices and honors, he 
became in the last years of his life a member of the Senate 
of the United States, and had a wider though not a more 
important field for the exercise of his abilities. 

But this man, moving in this public sphere, the observed of 
all observers, had yet other and more quiet ranges, where he 
was equally at home and widely known. He was one of the 
deacons of a large Congregational Church in Norwich, and 
one of the teachers in its Sabbath School. And by the law 
of Congregational comity and fellowship, this man, who was so 
eminent a layman in a local church, was naturally called to 
perform important and varied services in the sisterhood of 
churches. He was the presiding officer at the conference ; 
a director or the president of various benevolent organizations. 
He was called to be first of the moderators of the National 
Council of Congregational Churches meeting in Boston in 
1865, — just as his remote ancestor. Rev. Thomas Buckingham, 
was one of the presiding officers at that notable synod in Say- 
brook, in 1 708, which constructed the Saybrook platform. In 
these various ecclesiastical connections he was brought into 
familiar acquaintance with multitudes of people who may not 
have known him in political or business life. 

And in this connection it is pleasant to remember that Con- 
necticut has had other governors in the past, who did not 
forget their daily duties in their own local churches, while 
sharing more public honors and offices. Gov, Buckingham, in 
this respect, preserved the traditions of a simpler age, amid a 



generation more given to change and show. Roger Wolcott, 
Colonial Governor from 1750 to 1754, was an active member of 
Rev. Timothy Edwards' church in East Windsor, a man of 
large acquaintance with the Scriptures and of devoted piety. 
That wonderful boy, Jonathan Edwards, son of Timothy, 
through all the years of his childhood, doubtless heard from 
the lips of Roger Wolcott impressive expositions of Scripture 
doctrine and duty. They went in and out together at that 
rude meeting-house where Timothy Edwards began his min- 
istry in 1694. 

Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, in the goodly town of Lebanon, 
where Gov. Buckingham was born, was a pillar and tower ol 
strength in the local church over which Rev. Solomon Wil- 
liams was so long pastor. No public activities and cares ever 
made him forget his private religious duties to God and his 
fellow-men. If he wrote a letter to the Continental Congress, 
or to his beloved Washington, chief of the army, it was likely 
to be as good a letter religiously, as it was discreet and wise 
in a civic point of view. 

In more recent times, William W. Ellsworth, in the years 
while he held the office of Governor of Connecticut, kept his 
connection with his large Bible-class in Dr. Hawes' Church of 
Hartford, meeting them Sabbath by Sabbath in the plain old 
lecture-room, after a careful study of the lesson for the day. 
Other cases might be noticed, but these will suffice. It is in 
such characteristics as this that the glory of old Connecticut 
is found. 

The earliest ancestor of Gov. Buckingham on these New 
England shores was Thomas Buckingham, who in 1639 ap- 
pears as one of the " seven pillars " around whom the ancient 
church of Milford, Conn., was organized. The formation of 
the First Church in New Haven had just taken place, and the 
plan adopted was that seven men, including the pastor, should 
first bind themselves together by religious ceremonies and 
services, and so become the nucleus of organization. At New 
Haven, Mr. John Davenport, the pastor, preached on the occa- 
sion from the fitly chosen words, " Wisdom hath builded her 
house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars." This form of 
organization may be regarded as somewhat fanciful, and cer- 



tainly not necessary to the existence of a Congregational 
church ; but there was an element in it not devoid of 
decorous beauty and propriety. Seven was a sacred Old Tes- 
tament number, and they would begin with that. But the 
more important and vital idea was, as in the organization of 
the first churches in the Massachusetts Bay, that a Congrega- 
tional Church could spring into being anywhere, without 
regard to set forms, if only there was a little company of God's 
people who desired to be banded together in this goodly 
fellowship. 

But the pattern of organization at New Haven was copied 
for the church in Milford in that same year. Indeed, the cer- 
emony of organization took place in New Haven. Mr. Peter 
Prudden, the pastor, with William Fowler, Edmund Tapp, 
Zechariah Whitman, Thomas Buckingham, Thomas Welch, 
and John Astwood, were the " seven pillars " which wisdom 
had " hewn out " for the construction of this church in the 
wilderness. 

Dr. Sprague makes a mistake in a note in his Annals, where 
he confuses this Thomas Buckingham with his son, afterwards 
minister at Saybrook. The first Thomas Buckingham was 
only a prominent layman, like his distinguished descendant 
two hundred years later. 

This man's son. Rev. Thomas Buckingham, was minister 
of the ancient church of Saybrook (the technical name of 
the church is now " Old Saybrook ") nearly forty years, from 
1667 to 1709. The year before his death was made famous in 
Connecticut by the enactment, on this spot, of the " Saybrook 
Platform." Yale College, founded in 1700, had its early Com- 
mencements here. Mr. Buckingham was one of the trustees 
of the College. Yea, more, he was one of the ten ministers 
who met at Branford, in 1700, with their arms full of books, 
which they laid down upon a table, saying, " I give these 
books for the founding of a college in Connecticut. " That 
was the beginning of what was afterwards known as Yale 
College, and these ten ministers were the first trustees. 

As we have said, the early Commencements were held at 
Saybrook, though the students were not all taught there. It 
was " the day of small things," and the few scholars were 



quartered out here and there in the families of such ministers 
as were competent to instruct them. But in the month of 
September the trustees and the scattered students (at least 
such of them as were to be graduated) gathered at Saybrook, 
the Seniors to go through their exercises of graduation and to 
receive their degrees, and the trustees to attend to the business 
of the annual meeting. It was a day of rough roads and hard 
travelling, and it was desirable to cover as many public duties 
as possible by one journey. In the year 1708, in the month 
of May, the civil government of Connecticut thought there 
ought to be in the little Commonwealth a new ecclesiastical 
code ; and so this civil government (not the churches) ordered 
a synod to be convened at Saybrook, in connection with the 
next annual Commencement. The trustees of the college 
were eminent ministers, and they would serve the purposes of 
the synod, so far as they went, and save other men from 
making the toilsome journey. In fact, the synod only num- 
bered sixteen, — twelve ministers and four laymen; so that 
besides the trustees of the college, only a very few men were 
called to make any journey at all. 

We have no partialities whatever for the work which that 
body of men accomplished. The Saybrook Platform stands 
to-day only as a striking historical monument, showing a drift 
of those times. Many of the churches of Connecticut never 
would accept it, or be governed by it. It humbled and dis- 
honored the laity, and threw an almost despotic power into 
the hands of the ministers. It was more Presbyterian than 
Congregational, yet not either. But it came into being in the 
course of historical events, and is not to be judged by these 
days, but by the days preceding and attending its origin. 
Thomas Buckingham, minister of Saybrook, was the assistant 
moderator of that synod. He died in the year following. The 
Congregational Council that met in Boston in 1865, composed 
of more than five hundred ministers and laymen, gathered 
from every part of our wide Congregational field, with Gov. 
William A. Buckingham as Moderator, did work which we are 
quite sure will better stand the test of after times. 

Rev. Thomas Buckingham, of Saybrook, gave a son to 
the ministry, eminent in his profession. This was Rev. 



8 

Thomas Buckingham, a graduate of Harvard College in 1690, 
and pastor of the Second Church in Hartford between thirty 
and forty years, dying in 173 1. Rev. Stephen Buckingham, 
also a graduate of Harvard in 1693, and minister at Norwalk 
from 1697 to 1727, was a nephew. He died in 1746. On 
the death of Thomas, of Saybrook, in 1709, Thomas, of 
Hartford, was immediately chosen to fill his place on the 
Board of Trustees of the college; and in 17 16, Stephen, of 
Norwalk, was also elected a member of the Board. Thomas 
was a member for twenty-two years, and Stephen, sixteen. 

As evidence of the good estimation in which the Bucking- 
hams were held in the early colonial days, we find among the 
Public Records of Cojmecticiit such items as the following. 
"This Court [1699] grants the Rever'd Mr. Thomas Bucking- 
ham of Hartford, two hundred acres of land where it may be 
had without prejudice to any former grant or the settlement of 
any plantation. " 

And agaii>, in 1704: "This Assembly doth grant to the 
Rev^ Mr. Thomas Buckingham, of Saybrook, [here follow 
four other names, and then], Mr. Thomas Buckingham Jun"" 
Mr. Daniel Buckingham and Abimeleck the sonne of Joshua 
of Saybrook aforesaid, that they shall have a patent for a 
certain tract of land lying and bounded as followeth," etc. 
[Here the locality is given, showing it to be in Eastern Con- 
necticut, bounded easterly or northeasterly by the Willimantic 
River, which the record calls Wallainantick?[ This Abimeleck, 
the " sonne " of Joshua, was an Indian. Joshua was the English 
name for Uncas, and the son was favored and befriended for 
the services done to the English by his father. 

We now start anew with Rev. Thomas Buckingham, of 
Saybrook. We have spoken of his son, Rev. Thomas, of Hart- 
ford, and his nephew. Rev. Stephen, of Norwalk, because they 
were men of prominence in their generation. Thomas, of 
Saybrook, had other children : among them Daniel Buckingham, 
through whom the line of Gov. Buckingham is to be traced. 
Saybrook for some generations was the home of this branch 
of the family. To commence with our own times and move 
backward, the line will run thus, and the figures will show the 
year of birth. William A. Buckingham [1804] was the son 



of Samuel [1770], who was the son of Samuel [1740], who 
was the son of Daniel [1698], who was the son of Daniel 
[1672], who was the son of Rev. Thomas, of Saybrook [1646], 
who was the son of Thomas, one of the " sexen pillars " of the 
church of Milford, (1639). ^^^ ^^i^ history is made very clear 
in the Goiealogv of the Buckingham Family^ compiled by 
Robert H. Chapman, of Saybrook. We have seldom seen a 
volume in this line more neat and admirable in its arrange- 
ment. 

Deacon Samuel Buckingham was united in marriage, near 
the beginning of the present century, to Joanna Matson, of 
Lyme, and became a citizen of Lebanon, Conn. Six children 
were born into this household, of whom William A. was the 
second. There were two daughters and four sons. One son 
died in infancy ; the other children all lived to mature life. 
Two yet survive, — Dr. S. G. Buckingham, of Springfield, and 
Israel Matson Buckingham, of Norwich. 

Of such ancestry and parentage William A. Buckingham 
was born, in the town of Lebanon, Conn., on the 28th^ of 
May, 1804. No better town could have been selected for his 
birth and early education. On the one hand, the place was 
full of Revolutionary memories and traditions, and on the other, 
it was devoted to literary and intellectual culture to a very 
remarkable degree. From this quiet town, on the hills of 
Eastern Connecticut, an influence went forth, through all the 
years of the Revolutionary struggle, such as flowed from no 
other place, large or small, in all New England. This was the 
home of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, who held the office of gov- 
ernor from 1 769 to 1 783, and then resigned, having been for fifty 
years, in one form or another, without interruption, in the 
public service. By the peculiar charter of Connecticut, the 
colonial governors were chosen by the people, and not ap- 
pointed in England, and so Gov. Trumbull was on the side of 
the people, while the governors generally in the other Colonies 
were appointed abroad, and, at the opening of the Revolution- 
ary strife, acted for the home government and against the 
people. This, of itself, tended to give Gov. Trumbull a pccul- 

1 The Genealogy in the Buckingham Family is in trror in giving his birth as on 
the 25th. 

2 



lO 

iar prominence in that war, and to make Lebanon a peculiar 
place. Gov. Hawley, of Connecticut, in his address delivered 
in the Hall of Representatives at Washington, after Gov. 
Buckingham's death, says of Gov. Jonathan Trumbull, " Every 
other colonial governor went with the king. Brother Jonathan 
stood by the people and they stood by him from the beginning 
to the end, — the square, straight, solid, brave, indomitable 
old man." 

When to his official position we add his sterling qualities 
of character, lifting him into a clear and radiant atmosphere, 
his large and comprehensive views of the situation, his calm 
confidence in the future, even in the darkest hours, his unsul- 
lied patriotism, his immense activity, it may well be doubted 
whether any other man in all the thirteen colonies, Washing- 
ton only excepted, had so much to do in shaping the destinies 
of that long and wearisome conflict as he. This man, the 
elder Gov. Trumbull, was dead at the time of Mr. Bucking- 
ham's birth ; but another Jonathan Trumbull, his son, was 
governor of Connecticut from 1798 until his death in 1809. 
Col. John Trumbull, the painter, brother of the last named, 
had already achieved a European as well as American reputa- 
tion by his celebrated pictures, now to be found in the Trum- 
bull Gallery at New Haven. William Williams was also alive, 
but an old man, in young Buckingham's early childhood. He 
was a son of the old minister of the place (Solomon Williams), 
a signer of the Declaration, and bore a very prominent part in 
the war of the Revolution, both as a military officer and in 
civil affairs. 

Senator Ferry, of Connecticut (who now has followed the 
subject of this sketch to the unseen world), in his eulogy upon 
Gov. Buckingham, delivered in the Senate of the United States 
just after his death, most graphically described the ancient 
town of Lebanon. We have room, at this point, for only a few 
of his eloquent words. He said : — 

" There is no spot in the world where the conditions which 
mould a human life are more auspicious than those which existed 
in his native town from fifty to seventy years ago. Its natural 
aspects were simple and peaceful. . . . The air of the place 
was full of patriotic associations. It was the home of many 



II 

prominent characters of the Revolutionary period. Chief 
among these was the family of the Trumbulls. The plain 
frame house in which they had lived through two generations 
of distinguished service, and the old ' war-office,' as it was 
called, where the elder Trumbull had transacted his public 
business during his long administration of State affairs, 
remained landmarks of the past until a period even now 
recent. Schoolboys entering the latter looked with awe upon 
the marks of spurs still to be seen on the side of the counter 
where orderlies and express riders had sat awaiting the gov- 
ernor's orders during the War of Independence. In that house 
Washington, Franklin, Jefferson, Lafayette, Rochambeau, 
and many other old-time worthies had been guests. French 
troops had gone into winter quarters here, and five regiments 
had been reviewed by Washington himself on the spacious 
street. More than five hundred men from that little town had 
been in the Revolutionary armies at one time, and every house 
was full of their reminiscences." 

Dr. Buckingham, of Springfield, in a private letter written 
some years since, says of the place : " The old Trumbull tomb 
contains the dust of ' Brother Jonathan' ; ^ Faith Robinson, his 
wife, of the Leyden stock ; Jonathan Trumbull, the second 
governor, and William Williams, signer of the Declaration of 
Independence, and was enough to awaken patriotism in any 
boy, as he wandered through that old burying-ground." But 
when we pass from these historical memories and associations 
to contemplate the ancient town in another aspect, we have a 
result still more surprising. There is not probably, in all New 
England, anoth'er place of the same population that can point 
to so many eminent graduates of colleges among her sons, as 
Lebanon. Some happy, favoring influence early set this stream 
in motion, and once started it flowed on, broadening as it ran. 
Some of the ablest ministers of New England, and some of 

1 Many readers will know, what others may not, that the expression, " Brother 
Jonathan," now so common, came from the familiar intercourse of Washington 
with Gov. Trumbull. Drake, in his " Dictionary of American Biography," has 
doubtless stated the malter correctly, when he says that he [Trumbull] "was 
relied on by Washmgton as one of his main pillars of support. The phrase some- 
times used by him, ' Let us see what Brother Jonathan says,' is supposed to have 
originated the humorous term frequently applied to the United States." 



12 

her ablest lawyers and judges, came from this town. Among 
these earlier ministerial names we find such as these : Dr. John 
Smalley, Dr. Eliphalet Williams, Dr. Elijah Parish, Dr. Ezra 
Stiles Ely, Dr. Ralph R, Gurley, and Dr. Walter Harris. In 
civil life the result is no less remarkable. Jeremiah Mason, 
that giant among lawyers, among the very greatest certainly 
that New England has reared, had his birth and early educa- 
tion here. John Wheelock, ll. d., the second president of 
Dartmouth College, and son of Dr. Eleazer Wheelock, the first 
president, was reared at Lebanon, where his father was settled 
in the ministry. This and some other of the eminent names 
belonged to that part of the ancient town now known as Co- 
lumbia. Not far from sixty ministers were sent forth from this 
one township, with its different ecclesiastical parishes, and the 
whole number of its graduates cannot fall far short of one 
hundred. 

Lebanon has given to the State of Connecticut five gov- 
ernors, who have held the office nearly one third of the time 
for the last hundred years. These are Jonathan Trumbull, the 
elder ; Jonathan Trumbull, his son ; Joseph Trumbull, nephew 
of the last named ; Clark Bissell (also Judge of the Supreme 
Court, and Professor in the New Haven Law School), and 
William A. Buckingham. It passed into a kind of adage or 
pleasant saying among the people of Lebanon, that " they 
supplied Norwich with butter and eggs, and the State with 
governors. " This same town also gave Gov. Dewey to the 
State of Wisconsin. 

There was here enough certainly to stir the imagination of a 
child, and to awaken in him a sense of the value of individual 
character. But it is, after all, to the home life that we must 
look for the choicest and most decisive influences in moulding 
the character of a child ; and here young Buckingham was as 
fortunate as he was in his general surroundings. Mrs. Stowe, 
in her Men of Our Times, has finely drawn the outlines of 
this parentage. " His father was a thrifty farmer, a deacon in 
the church, a man of remarkably sound judgment and common- 
sense, and a public-spirited man, abounding in ^hospitality. 
His mother was one of those women in whom the strong 
qualities of the Puritan stock came to a flowering and fruitage 



13 

of celestial quality, a rare union of strength and soundness. 
She had a mother's ambition for her children, but always di- 
rected to the very highest things. ' Whatever else you are, 
I want you to be Christians,' was one of her daily household 
sayings. Her memory is cherished in the records of many 
words and deeds of love and beneficence, written not with pen 
and ink, ' but in fleshly tables of the heart,' in all the region 
where she lived." 

This mother came from the old town of Lyme, fruitful in 
good influences and in good character. The mother of the 
present Chief Justice of the United States, Morrison R. 
Waite, was her sister ; and in that town he himself had his 
birth and early education. 

One of the pastors of the Lebanon Church (his name is 
not given, but from the circumstances of the case we judge 
it to be Rev. John C. Nichols, settled there from 1840 to 1854) 
gives the following most impressive testimony as to the char- 
acter of this woman : — 

"When I became pastor of the church, I was struck wher- 
ever I went with the love and gratitude which all poured out 
at the mention of one individual. That individual was the 
mother of our now good governor, — a noble son of a noble 
mother. Beneath every roof her name was most affectionately 
mentioned, as her memory is now sacredly cherished. I 
wondered how she had thus endeared herself to the hearts of 
that people. But when I saw her at the bedside of the sick 
and dying, ministering like an angel from above to their relief; 
when I saw her gifts scattered wherever they were needed ; 
when I saw how little she spent upon herself and how cheer- 
fully she gave to others, I understood the secret." 

The oldest child in this household was a daughter, about three 
years older than the subject of this sketch. A sister standing 
in such relations of age is not to be overlooked in computing 
the influences which circle about the mind and heart of the 
growing boy ; and especially in this instance these influences 
are not to be forgotten, for all witnesses agree {and the facts 
are within the personal knowledge of the writer) in ascribing 
to Abigail Buckingham a saintly beauty of character. Her 
thoughts, hopes, and aspirations were not in the line of com- 



14 

mon earthly ambitions, but were set towards choice and re- 
fined culture, and a heavenly purity of heart and disposition. 

Such were the aspects and conditions of life within the 
house when this boy first came to years of childish thought 
and activity. But the world without was also attractive and 
beautiful. Though the town, in some parts, is as rocky and 
rough as the ancient mountain of this name that furnished 
cedars for the temple of Solomon, yet the cattle find sweet 
pasturage in these rocky fields, and strong hands have subdued 
large portions of the territory, until it spreads out in fertile 
beauty, in corn-lands and mowing-lands, neat and refreshing 
to the eye. Like many of the ancient towns of Connecticut, 
the centre of Lebanon is well up on the hills, where the winds 
blow freely, and where the eye may look off in almost any 
direction. It is a quiet old place now. In our times the 
" gods of the valleys " have prevailed over the " gods of the 
hills." The manufacturing villages, the railroads, and the 
cities have drained the very life out of these old hill-towns. 
But no one can pass along that wide and generous street in 
Lebanon Centre, — so wide that it is quite a little evening 
walk to go across it, — and not feel that this was a place of 
ancient dignity and respectability. Without exaggeration, it 
may be said that land enough was thrown open in making this 
street to constitute a farm of large dimensions. The five regi- 
ments which Washington reviewed there could march and 
countermarch in those great spaces without any impediment. 
The houses stand at frequent intervals on both sides, and 
ancient trees spread their covering branches for friendly shade 
in the summer, and to make weird music when the winter 
winds sweep through them. The farms, on which successive 
generations of hardy freemen have toiled, slope off to the east 
and west, — a picture of beauty to the eye of the traveller 
coming into the place from either direction. 

Four miles away westward, but still in the same town, is the 
old ecclesiastical parish of Exeter, with its meeting-house 
planted on well-nigh the highest hill. Two or three miles 
southerly is another ecclesiastical centre, the old parish of 
Goshen, Some miles to the north was the ancient Lebanon 
Crank, where Dartmouth College first had its birth as " Moor's 



15 

Indian Charity School " ; and after a few years' existence in this 
form, and under this name, was moved up into the wilder- 
ness of New Hampshire in 1769, and planted at Hanover. 
Lebanon Crank was another ecclesiastical parish, over which, 
more than a hundred years ago, the famous Dr. Wheelock was 
settled. This part of the primitive township is now set off, 
and forms the present town of Columbia. 

We have given, perhaps, an undue portion of the space 
allotted us to what might be called preliminary details. But 
Gov. Buckingham's public life was so very public that it is 
" read and known of all men," and if we should go over it, in 
minute specification, we could hardly hope to deepen the im- 
pression already upon the minds of the people. We have 
thought it more important to reveal what is not so generally 
known, — the ancestral traditions, and the household and town 
associations out of which he came ; to show how truly he was 
a product of our New England life and habit, and that, too, 
under most favoring conditions. 

For the first eighteen years he was a farmer's boy, — up early 
in the morning to milk and drive the cows to pasture, and 
bring up the wide-horned oxen for the labors of the day. He 
brought back the wandering sheep, when they had climbed over 
the stone walls into the street, or into other people's lands ; 
he took care of the tender young lambs when the cold storms 
of the early spring came upon them ; he ploughed and hoed, 
and helped still further to civilize those hard and rocky fields 
on which other generations had wrought. But this was not 
the whole of his life. The district school was busy, and win- 
ter evenings were long ; and seven or eight miles away, at 
Colchester, Bacon Academy was doing its work, a work which 
even then it had long been doing, and is active in the same 
way to this day ; and hither the youth could repair for that 
higher instruction which the district school could not give. 
Gov. Buckingham was well educated in early life, though he did 
not, like so many of the youth of his town, " go to college." 

At eighteen he taught a winter school in Lyme, his mother's 
birthplace. Hardly any young man at that age teaches 
school without receiving, at least for the first winter, as much 
education as he imparts ; and the more thoroughly he works 



i6 

for others, the greater is the advantage which he reaps for 
himself. He was wanted for the same school another season, 
but he thought it better to help his father a little longer, for 
he was now getting ready to embark upon mercantile life. At 
twenty he went into a dry-goods store in Norwich as clerk, 
where he remained two years. At twenty-two he went to 
New York as clerk in a wholesale store, but soon returned 
and established himself in Norwich in the dry-goods business 
for himself. In 1830 he became a carpet-manufacturer, mak- 
ing that style of carpets known as " ingrain." He continued 
in this business eighteen years. In 1848 he went into the 
rubber business, and became a leading member of the Hay- 
ward Rubber Co., having its workshops at Colchester. This 
place was sixteen miles from Norwich, where Mr. Buckingham 
still kept his residence, with no railroad communications what- 
ever. All the raw material had to be carried from Norwich 
by teams, and the manufactured goods brought back in the 
same way. But it made Colchester a busy place ; for many 
hands were employed, and the company was exceedingly pros- 
perous. Mr. Buckingham was its treasurer and largely its 
business manager. From the thriving condition of his affairs 
in this connection he became a stockholder, and to some extent 
a manager, in eight or ten different manufacturing companies, 
so that he now touched the great business world at many 
points. 

Up to this period of his life (about 1850), though he had 
been an active and somewhat prominent Whig and Republican, 
he had had little official connection with political life. He 
had been chosen mayor of Norwich in 1849 ^^^ 3- term of two 
years, and was again elected for a two years' term in 1856. 
But about that time the Republicans of Eastern Connecticut 
began to turn towards him as a candidate for governor. He 
would probably have been nominated at the convention in 
1857 had not a heavy snow-storm prevented many of the del- 
egates from Eastern Connecticut, especially from Windham 
County, from reaching the place of meeting. This was re- 
garded afterwards as a providential event : for if he had been 
nominated and chosen in 1857, he would, by party usage, have 
gone out in 1859, ^.nd some other man would have been in 



17 

office in i860, when the war broke out. It is the deep convic- 
tion of the people of Connecticut that no other man could 
in that crisis have done what he did. His previous large 
connections with business enabled him to command resources 
in this pressing exigency upon which other men could not 
have laid hold. He was nominated and chosen governor, as 
before stated, in 1858, and the little Commonwealth did not 
dare to drop him in 1 860, and so he was governor for eight 
years, and in some of those years was elected by such sweep- 
ing majorities as the Republicans of that little State may not 
soon see again. 

We have no wish or purpose to exalt Gov. Buckingham 
unduly above many other governors in the Northern States. 
Not a few of them have left noble records, and this is not a 
place for rude comparisons. Nor can we venture even to enter 
upon that war record in detail. It is too voluminous. From 
the first outbreak, when he hurried Gen. Aiken, afterwards his 
son-in-law, away to Washington, to assure President Lincoln 
that the troops were coming, through all those gloomy four 
years, till General Lee's final surrender, he was boundless in 
his activity. He seemed a man as truly raised up for the 
exigency as did his great townsman, Gov. Trumbull, in the 
years of the Revolution. Is there anything weak or super- 
stitious in the thought, that the God who of old prepared 
Abraham and Moses and David, by a peculiar early experience 
and discipline, for the great part they were to act in the history 
of our race, was just as distinctly preparing him in those early 
years, on the hills of Eastern Connecticut, for the great crisis 
that came upon this nation in 1860.-* Was it a mere chance 
that enveloped his childhood in such an atmosphere of patriot- 
ism ; that opened his eyes to look upon the monuments of the 
illustrious dead, and upon the faces of men yet living, who had 
done so noble a work for their country in her great struggle for 
liberty } We do not so understand the events of human life. 
Such men as Abraham Lincoln, John A. Andrew, William A. 
Buckingham, and others, were chosen, trained, and prepared 
for that sharp crisis of the Rebellion, as truly as Moses was 
fitted and appointed to lead the children of Israel out from the 
house of their bondage. 
3 



i8 

In the year 1865, when the war closed, Gov, Buckingham, 
after seven years of service, was re-elected governor for the 
last time, by such a majority as even he had never received 
before. It was the crowning testimony of his fellow-citizens 
to his faithfulness and to the great value of his services. He 
filled the office for the eighth year ; but the war was now over, 
and he desired to retire. From 1866 to '69 he had a kind of 
respite from public cares, but in the last-named year he was 
chosen a member of the Senate of the United States for the 
full term of six years. We shall not stop to dwell upon the 
particulars of that senatorial service, but will leave others to 
tell the story, before we close. 

Let us turn back now for a few moments, to view him in his 
domestic relations, and in the more quiet walks of his large 
and beneficent life. 

Gov. Buckingham was united in marriage, Sept. 27, 1830, to 
Miss Eliza Ripley, daughter of Major Dwight Ripley, a prom- 
inent merchant of Norwich in the early part of the present 
century. In this happy relation he lived thirty-eight years, 
his wife dying April 19, 1868, greatly beloved and cherished 
in the large circle of kindred and friends among whom she 
had so long lived. They had two children, — a son, Wil- 
liam Ripley, who died when two years old, in 1838; and a 
daughter, Eliza Coit, now the wife of Gen. William A. Aiken, 
who was an honored Aid of the governor in the years of the 
war. 

In the Broadway Church at Norwich, Deacon Buckingham 
was even more of a " pillar " than his great ancestor, Thomas 
Buckingham, had been in the ancient church of Milford. It 
was largely through his agency that the church was organized. 
He made public profession of his faith in Christ in 1830, and 
connected himself with the Second Church in Norwich, of 
which Rev. Alfred Mitchel was then pastor. He continued in 
this connection for twelve years, and was most useful and 
happy in it Meanwhile Mr. Mitchel had died, and after 
another brief pastorate. Dr. Alvan Bond, now venerable with 
age, in 1835 had entered upon his long ministry. The con- 
gregation were most cordially united under him, and the 
affairs of the parish were eminently prosperous. In no divi- 



19 

sive spirit, but simply because he thought, for the honor of 
Christ and His cause, that Norwich ought to have another Con- 
gregational church, he made a report to that effect in 1838, 
which, four years later, resulted in the going forth of a colony 
to establish what is now known as the Broadway Church and 
Society. He gave to the new society an organ, and built for 
it a Mission Chapel, besides all that he had given for the main 
edifice. 

He is said to have been the largest individual donor to the 
Norwich Free Academy, an institution founded upon a truly 
catholic basis, and justly the pride of that unique and beau- 
tiful little city. His gifts to this institution, built by the 
subscriptions of many, are said to have amounted to about 
$10,000. 

For the reorganization and uplifting of the Yale Divinity 
School, which, after Dr. Taylor's death, fell into some measure 
of neglect and decay, he made the generous offering of 
$25,000. Through this donation, and others which have fol- 
lowed, that institution now occupies a prominent position 
among our theological schools. As governor of the State 
of Connecticut, he was a member of the corporation of Yale 
College, as his ancestor. Rev. Thomas Buckingham, of Say- 
brook, had been more than a hundred and fifty years before. 
In 1866, just after he had ceased to be a member, that corpo- 
ration worthily bestowed upon him the degree of LL. D. 

He was a corporate member of the American Board, and 
oflficially connected with several of our benevolent societies. 
As an instance of his faithfulness in all these more quiet 
walks of usefulness, the following circumstance may be men- 
tioned. At the time of the union of the " American Education 
Society " and " The Society for the Promotion of Collegiate 
and Theological Education," which took place in May, 1874, 
under a new charter from the Legislature of Massachusetts, 
Gov. Buckingham was elected its president. At the same 
time he was frankly told that the Society did not wish to impose 
new burdens upon him, amid his many private and public 
cares ; that it wanted his name for the weight and dignity 
in it ; and that he need not feel constrained to attend the 
quarterly meetings except at his own convenience. The first 



20 

quarterly meeting fell in the July following ; and very unex- 
pectedly to the directors, but to their great gratification, their 
new president was on hand in Boston, at the moment, and 
presided at the meeting. 

These details might be almost indefinitely extended, but we 
must hasten to a conclusion. 

Gov. Buckingham died in his own home at Norwich, on the 
night of Feb. 4, 1875. He had completed his "threescore 
years and ten " which the Psalmist so long ago fixed as the 
" days of our years." Such had been his failing health and 
strength in the months preceding, that he had not been able 
to join his associates in the Senate at Washington during that 
session. But the news of his death was quickly conveyed to 
them, and all that could be done to the honor of his memory 
was promptly done. Some great men have died out of the 
Senate of the United States within the past few years, and 
fitting tributes have been paid them, but it may be doubted 
whether any one has drawn more upon the fountains of ten- 
derness than he. In the speeches both in the Senate and the 
House there is a remarkable absence of what may be called 
formal and conventional. They are such words as mourners 
speak when the eye is moist and the heart full. It was Satur- 
day, Feb. 27, when the commemorative service was held in 
the Senate, and Senator Ferry said : — 

" I love to contemplate that portion of his life when, a simple private 
citizen, he was doing the work which he found to do, without thought 
of the greater future which awaited him. No opportunity to do good, 
great or small, escaped him. He taught little children in the Sunday- 
School. As deacon of the church, he was its almoner to the poor, and the 
distributer of the sacred emblems to the membership of its communion 
and to the stranger within its gates. He helped to found academies, build 
up public libraries, provide or feeble churches, promote temperance 
reform, endow colleges, and to send the light of Christian civilization to 
the remotest corners of the globe. And all this so quietly, so naturally, 
as it were, that, proceeding from him, it seemed nothing extraordinary. 
Moreover, there were ever flowing from him streams of hidden beneficence, 
gladdening many hearts and drying the tears in many eyes, whose story 
never will be told till the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed. 

"An incident which occurred on the day of his funeral may perhaps 
fitly close these reminiscences. All the morning, in the home where he 



/ 
/ 



21 

had so long dwelt, liis body lay in its still repose, while friends and 
acquaintances from his own and adjacent communities passed in long pro- 
cession through the silent room, taking one last look at the face of the 
departed. It was an impressive scene: great dignitaries were there, cab- 
inet officers, senators, representatives, governors, and judges of the land ; 
young and old, rich and poor, men and women, the wise, the brilliant, and 
the beautiful. Among them all was observed a humble negro couple 
advanced in years. With bowed faces they paused at the coffin, gazed 
upon the calm features with tears streaming down their dusky cheeks, and 
passed on, bursting into irrepressible sobs as they moved from the apart- 
ment. No one knew the story of those tears, but from what I know of 
the dead I am sure that there was a story in them, and I call to mind the 
words of Him who said, ' Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the 
least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.' " 

No one spoke more tenderly on that occasion than Senator 
Howe, of Wisconsin. These are a few of his moving words : — 

"Mr. President, I put on no sable, none of the trappings of woe, to 
stand by the bier of Buckingham. I recall no single trait in his character, 
no incident in his career, to bow me with a sense of humiliation. On the 
contrary, the memory of all the years I knew him fills me with exultation. 
To be sure, as I look to the chair he occupied, I miss the breathing bene- 
diction which always seemed to emanate from it while he sat there. As I 
look into the saddened faces of the Senate, I see clearly ' he is not here.' 
But not one angel only, a multitude rather which no man hath numbered, 
all in shining garments, assure me 'he is risen.' 

" And then, sir, I remember with grateful pride that he was an American 
Senator. 

" One incident in his life I will venture to recall, which- not inaptly 
illustrates his enduring excellence. By command of the Senate I was 
with others assigned but three years ago to aid the deceased on the inves- 
tigation of alleged abuses in the customs service in New York. It was an 
irksome task, yet we prosecuted it for weeks. Daily we were splashed 
with the foul humors engendered in the slandered politics of a great city. 
Malice unwound a hideous web before us, shot with a thread of fact to a 
shuttleful of falsehood. 

" During the whole trial I did not once hear from him a censorious 
remark or even a petulant exclamation. It was evident he was human, 
and that he felt. . . . But the poultice of a night relieved the suffering, and 
each succeeding day restored him to his work, showing no more trace of 
scars from the inflictions of the yesterdays than the sun bore which 
lighted him to his work. 

" Mr. President, I have long felt to regret that I never heard Jenny Lind 
sing, that I never saw Rachel act. They must have been marvellous speci- 
mens of art. Gov. Buckingham was a grand piece of nature. I shall 



22 

always regret that I could not have known him in domestic life. I am 
persuaded that was his masterpiece. I never saw him in the presence of 
a child, but I partly know what he was as a father. Once he spoke to 
me of a daughter, and no June morning ever suiTused the eastern sky with 
a more genial radiance than that which broke over the face of the father 
as he told me how good that daughter was." 

Senator Pratt, of Indiana, bore this happy testimony to the 
quality of that public service which Gov. Buckingham had 
rendered to the country: — 

" He was a statesman in the best sense of that term. What makes a 
statesman ? Not knowledge alone, however wide, deep, varied, and all- 
comprehensive ; not mere quickness of apprehension to detect the latent 
fallacy in argument or proposition ; not large experience with men and 
subjects in the legislative forum, nor familiarity with parliamentary rules ; 
it does not consist alone in great powers of debate. All these may coexist 
and yet something be wanting to complete onr beau idea/ of the statesman. 
What is the lack .'' What is still wanting ? I reply, Perfect integrity, 
broad philanthropy, and an ardent patriotism, which, discarding selfish 
aims and local benefits, seeks to elevate the whole people; to make them 
wiser and better, and to promote their material welfare. 

"To this highest type of statesmanship he belonged whose memory we 
honor to-day. He was not a great orator, upon whose utterances men 
hung with bated breath ; he did not mingle frequently in debate ; he did 
not aspire to the honor of leadership, nor was his education as compre- 
hensive as that of many, — he made no pretence to superior mental cul- 
ture. But he possessed that practical knowledge of the affairs of the 
country: its varied industries and wants; its internal and foreign com- 
merce ; its growing manufactures ; its vast agricultural and mineral 
resources, and especially that knowledge of our relations with the various 
Indian tribes, to which subject he gave so much of his attention as the 
chairman of the Committee on Indian AiTairs, as to eminendy qualify him 
to be a judicious adviser in this body, and to frame appropriate laws upon 
these subjects." 

The following touching incident came out in the speech of 
the veteran Gov. Morton, also Senator from Indiana: — 

" Just before the close of the last session, and before his departure, he 
came across to my seat where I am now sitting, and said, ' Well, we are 
about to separate. I hope we will meet next winter in better health.' He 
said, ' I am an old man, and feel that my race is nearly run.' He said, 
' There are only three of us left who served as governors of our respective 
States throughout the entire war,' referring to himself, to Gov. Curtin 
of Pennsylvania, and to myself. He said that Yates and Andrew were 



23 

gone, and that we, notwithstanding our utmost hopes, must soon follow ; 
and taking me by the hand expressed the hope that we should meet the 
coming winter in better health. We parted to meet no more." 

The commemoration service in the House took place the 
same day, Feb. 27, and while we would like to quote from 
the speeches of Mr. Starkweather^ and Mr. Kellogg of Connec- 
ticut, as also from that of Mr. Wilson of Iowa, we have space 
only for the following passage from Gov. Hawley of Con- 
necticut. He said: — 

" I do not know that men would call Gov. Buckingham a great man, 
but he is like many others who are revered in history. Sometimes men 
sit down and dissect the character of George Washington, and tell us he 
was not great ; but the world persists in remembering him, walking about 
his character, pointing out all its virtues, and admiring its symmetry and 
power. So of our lamented friend : I do not know as we can call him a great 
orator, or a great writer, or great in anything especially ; but you can look 
at no element of his heart or head in which he does not appear excellent. 
As a son, as a husband, as a father, as a brother and friend, all who knew 
him speak of him in terms of the most devoted affection and respect. 
They say there was none like the old governor in all these things, and 
as he moved among his fellow-citizens his appearance commanded their 
respect. Strong in his affections, kindly and courteous in his manner, 
he attracted the love of all about him. 

" Our troops always went out so well equipped that on reaching the field 
they were immediately stripped of some of their surplus. Interested in the 
widows and orphan children of the dead soldiers, and urging upon the 
Legislature the care of them, sending his agents continually to inspect 
the condition of our troops, and communicating with them constantly by 
messengers and telegrams, from the beginning to the end, I do not 
know what more our Commonwealth would have asked of William A. 
Buckingham." 

When the great leaders of the race 

Come forth upon the earth, 
Not from the loins of haughty kings 

Do they derive their birth j 

1 There is a singular and sad story connected with Mr. Starkweather. Mr. 
Ferry and Mr. Starkweather — the former in the Senate and the latter in the 
House at Washington— both made fitting and beautiful addresses commemora- 
tive of Gov. Buckingham. A few months later, as already noticed, Senator Ferry 
died. When the service of commemoration for him came, Mr. Starkweather was 
to have been one of the speakers, and he had committed to paper the remarks 
which he intended to make. But before the day came, Mr. Starkweather too was 
numbered with the dead. His address was read in the Senate Chamber amid the 
solemn stillness of the assembly. 



24 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



013 709 052 1 



They are not nursed in princely halls, 

And with choice dainties fed ; 
They do not wear the robes of state, 

Or sleep on downy bed. 

Out in the open world of God, 

Where Nature's pulse beats strong. 
They hear the winged tribes of air 

Pour forth their morning song ; 
They feel the glory of the hills, 

The glory of the sky. 
And watch the nightly pomp of stars 

In splendor marching by. 

They know the great, rude heart of man. 

With all its homely cares, 
They know the sorrows and the joys 

The toiling peasant shares ; 
The wants, the passions, the desires, 

The hatred and the strife, — 
They learn this lesson, broad and deep, 

Taught by our common life. 

So God makes kings in quietness. 

Unconscious of their might, 
Until the fulness of the time 

Unfolds them to the light. 



